Oxford and Cambridge exchange masterpieces

After a £7.83 million campaign to acquire Édouard Manet’s magnificent Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus in 2012, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is now lending the painting to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge as part of a nationwide tour.

The Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus (1868) will be on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum from 18 September to 13 December 2015. It is Manet’s first version of his famous painting The Balcony(1868-9, Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which was inspired by Francisco Goya’s "Majas on a Balcony" painted in 1810 (Metropolitan Museum, New York).

The portrait’s subject is Fanny Claus (1846-77), the closest friend of Manet’s wife Suzanne Leenhoff. A concert violinist, Fanny was one of the artist’s favourite sitters and a member of a close-knit group of friends who also provided him with models. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 30.

The acquisition of Manet’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus was the most significant in the Ashmolean’s history, supported with £5.9 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), and a grant of £850,000 from the Art Fund.

The Fitzwilliam also has been generously lent Perspective II, Manet’s Balcony (1950) by René Magritte (1898-1967) from the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent.

By displaying Magritte’s painting alongside Manet’s preliminary version of The Balcony, the Fitzwilliam will show how the line of descent from Goya’s original painting extended into the 20th century, with the twist in Magritte’s painting that the sitters in Manet’s, including Fanny Claus, are replaced by coffins.

Both paintings will be on display until 13 December 2015 in the Impressionist gallery (Gallery 5).

Read the full press release on the loans here.

Image: Édouard Manet, Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, 1868 The Ashmolean Museum, University Oxford. Purchased by private treaty sale through Robert Holden Ltd, following a public appeal, and with the assistance of the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund, the Friends and Patrons of the Ashmolean, Manny & Brigitta Davidson and family, Mr & Mrs Geoffrey de Jager, Sir Harry & Lady Djanogly, Mr Philip Mould, the Rothschild Foundation, the Dr Mortimer & Theresa Sackler Foundation, Mr & Mrs Timothy Sanderson, the Staples Trust, Sir Adrian Swire, Mr & Mrs Bernard Taylor, Barrie & Deedee Wigmore, Mr & Mrs Brian Wilson, the J.L. Wine Charitable Trust, & the Woodward Charitable Trust, 2012

17 September 2015